Droplet [comrade/them]

As others have said, there is no such thing as a comprehensive nuclear defense system. Everyone is vulnerable.

The real question is how would the opposite side react? The MAD deterrence has never been broken. This is truly uncharted territory.

Let’s say the US (through the Ukrainian Armed Forces) uses a low yield nuke on a village in Russia-occupied Ukraine. 10 people are killed. How would Russia respond? Unload the rest of its nuclear arsenals against American cities? Retaliate against an American village? How would things escalate from there? I don’t think anybody can predict what would happen, which is what makes the entire scenario so scary.

But one thing for sure is that the world is going to change overnight. Its significance would likely exceed 9/11, when everyone would be so shocked that they could still recall what they were doing at the very moment the news came on even decades later.

Reagan tried that with the Star Wars program while turned out to be a complete disaster but it did drive the USSR into overspending their defense budget and overstretching their economy.

This is the new model for America’s war, perfected in Ukraine.

This hypothesis is stolen from Michael Hudson: You send military equipments to get blown up in Ukraine, killing Ukrainian soldiers, the government gives more money to defense contractors to replace the lost equipment. GDP goes up. In fact, for every American tank blown up in Ukraine, GDP goes up, the strength of US dollar goes up, which it then leverages to wreck the economies of the Global South. Rinse and repeat. It doesn’t even matter whether new equipments get built, or if they are functional, as long as GDP goes up, the strength of the dollar goes up.

Same here with the Phillipines. GDP for America is gonna go up for every Filipino killed, who will be dying for America’s war. No need to sacrifice American lives like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan anymore.

I was wrong and too naive to think that the Ukraine war would be confined to industrial warfare alone, which Russia is winning handily. But it looks like we are going to see a transition into financial warfare very soon, and when that happens, global flashpoints are going to erupt all across the world, and it would take a lot of collective sanity to ensure that nukes don’t start flying.

Like how everyone copes with climate change:

This might be the hottest summer in a century, but hey, it’s also the coolest summer over the next hundred years. Let’s cherish it while we still can.

Remember folks, this is the most important election of your lifetime. You get to choose between:

Make Fascism Great Again vs Build Back Fascism Better

Downvotes from libs is like a badge of honor for every communist poster. I like being downvoted.

This is an extremely simplistic view of the relationship between labor and capital.

First, this is not ultraleft. The ultraleft position is that all major governments (including the USSR, China and other AES) are actually bourgeois and imperialist and their people suffer from the same exploitation indistinguishable from those who are exploited in the imperial core, so their solution is that all leftists have to perform revolutionary defeatism within their own country (again, including the USSR, China and other AES) in order to overthrow their respective bourgeois regimes and come together internationally to enact communism on a global scale.

And as I have said, the comment you posted is also a very simplistic take on the matter.

We have to look at this from the perspective of revolutionary potential, in other words: does the working class in the Imperial Core have more, less or equal revolutionary potential as the working class in the Global South?

To dissect this question, we need to understand how the global economy works post-1971, after the vast export of their industrial capacity to the rest of the Global South while the US empire sustains itself as a global debtor (which is fundamentally different from the British empire, which was a global creditor).

The neoliberalized American economy since the 1970s has been propped up mostly by the so-called FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate - a terminology coined by the economist Michael Hudson) which are essentially non-productive sectors that do not produce real goods and services. This is a prominent feature of finance capitalism devouring industrial capitalism:

The strength of its currency is derived from real estate ownership (land value), stocks and bonds market, intellectual property rights and licensing, financial derivatives etc. Now, you might think all these are virtual and therefore the US dollar is worthless. But no, this is what the world (held under the gunpoint by the US empire) has decided to calculate their GDP and currency exchange rate, which then allows the US to wreck other economies in the Global South using the strength of its currency, maintaining dominance over them and essentially extorting free lunches from all over the world, as most of the real goods and services today are produced by the Global South countries.

In other words, the financial empire is more like a landlord who does not have to work for a single day but can get everything he wants simply through extracting rent and concession. The US empire is doing this on a global scale against other countries.

While the Imperial Core enjoys the benefits of cheap goods and services from the Global South, this does not mean that their working class truly benefits from it. Instead, their exploitation became a form of debt slavery. Wages are kept low so workers have to borrow money to sustain themselves, which transforms their class character into one of debtor.

This kind of financialized capitalism means that unlike the late 19th and early-mid 20th centry, which was dominated by industrial capital, the working class in the Imperial Core today has their labor tied to debt (mortgage, rent, credit cards, student loans, medical bills etc.) rather than to industrial productivity, which was a key argument from Marx that proletariat is a uniquely revolutionary class because being freed from the land under the feudal arrangement, the labor performed by the proletariat is now directly tied to industrial profit under capitalism. The capitalists had to rely on labor to compete with other capitalists in order to make profit.

It has been described that the Imperial Core today under finance capitalism is more like a neo-feudal society rather than the industrial capitalism of the previous centuries. And this is largely true: just like the serfs in the feudal era, whose labor was tied to their land, the working class in the Imperial Core today work bullshit jobs to earn money to pay off their debt, which is what was necessary to survive in the first place. The manufacturing and service sectors pale in comparison to the FIRE sector, as much has already been exported to the rest of the Global South (and especially against China).

I am already writing too long but to conclude very quickly: the working class in the Imperial Core does have diminished revolutionary potential, which means that not only do they have to fight for better working conditions etc., but also the defeat of the non-productive FIRE sectors within their own countries in order to free themselves and the world of debt slavery. It is more akin the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism, but in reverse. And only then, will they have the true potential to seize the means of production.

In other words, working class in the Imperial Core cannot simply organize just for improving the benefits of their own, but also need to incorporate anti-imperialism into their core struggles (which includes performing revolutionary defeatism of their own imperialist government) in order to defeat finance capitalism (which is rooted in the Imperial Core), which would then allow the socialist movements across the Global South to rise up against their bourgeois regimes, and by doing so advancing socialism across the world.

EDIT: can’t believe I forgot to say about the Global South. The working class of the Global South today suffers from the opposite problem: a left wing government (revolutionary or democratically elected) is immediately wrecked by sanctions, currency depreciation, burdening debt overhead from both currency depreciation and capital flight, endless coups, economic hardship etc.

So, the fundamental nature of struggles between working class in the Imperial Core and the Global South is different, YET they are tied together by the principal contradiction of anti-imperialism. According to this admittedly shallow and underdeveloped understanding of the world, countering imperialism (whose main instrument is finance capital i.e. currency) would simultaneously disentangle the contradictions of BOTH the working class struggles of the Imperial Core and the Global South, and opening up the spaces for further revolutionary struggle against Capital. Once again Mao’s On Contradiction could prove very useful in the analysis here.

Maybe r/politics is still run by CTR, which was installed by the pro-Clinton faction back in 2015. They’d have reasons to want to swap out Biden for Hillary.

Btw anyone here remembers the overwhelmingly pro-Bernie r/politics until it suddenly became pro-Clinton overnight? Many of us ended up in r/cth precisely of that reason despite having never listened to the podcast before.

You cannot predict stock market, AI or not.

In the past, you can use trend analysis to look at the historical movement of commodity prices, for example. But these days the US has gained such total control of various critical sectors (oil, energy, for example) which have significant impact on the global economy, and it can happen because of political decisions, not economic.

For example, in 2015 oil price crash was a deliberate decision of the US to destroy the petroleum export dependent economies of Iran, Russia and Venezuela with its shale revolution. It was purely politically motivated. You literally cannot predict how the stocks will move because the world economy is dependent on what the US imperialists want to do at the spur of the moment.

The US can bomb Nord Stream because it feels like it and there goes the European economy.

Agreed on all points. I am just laughing at the CNES chief who insists on protectionism whereas on many other occasions they’d have cheerfully advocating for “too bad that’s just capitalism” type of free market liberalism.

Remember when libs were laughing at Trump’s elementary school level vocabulary when he speaks? Honestly it was one of the least valid reasons for criticizing Trump, but they took pleasure at laughing at someone deemed uneducated to them.

Now they’re getting a Biden who cannot even string words together, and they’re locked into defending him just so Trump doesn’t win.

You cannot make this shit up.

EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) ditched Ariane 6 in favor of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 for the launch of Meteosat MTG-S1 satellite, just two weeks before the maiden flight of Ariane 6.

CNES Chief Responds Harshly to Eumetsat’s Decision to Ditch Ariane 6

CNES chief Philippe Baptiste has responded to Eumetsat’s decision to ditch Ariane 6 for Falcon 9, saying that it is a “brutal change” and “a very disappointing day for European space efforts.”

Late yesterday, French news outlet Le Monde reported that the executive committee of Eumetsat, the European meteorological satellite agency, had asked the agency’s board of directors to cancel a contract it signed with Arianespace four years ago to launch its Meteosat MTG-S1 satellite. The mission would have been flown aboard the third Ariane 6 flight, which is expected to be launched in early 2025. The satellite will now be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

In a post on LinkedIn, CNES chairman and CEO responded harshly to Eumetsat’s decision to ditch Ariane 6 in favour of Falcon 9, saying, “How far will we, Europeans, go in our naivety.”

In addition to expressing his dissatisfaction with Eumetsat’s decision, Baptiste also expressed the need to require European institutional missions to be launched aboard European rockets.

“I am impatiently waiting to understand what reasons could have led Eumetsat to such a decision at a time [when] all major European space countries as well as the European Commission are calling for launching European satellites on European launchers.”

In a call to action, Baptiste stated that it was “time for the European Commission to take the necessary measures so that all European institutional satellites are launched on small and large European launchers.” This sentiment echoed comments made by Arianespace earlier this week.

Do they still not understand? America is taking over all of Europe’s leading industries. There will be nothing left for them soon.

Also funny for the EU supporters who advocate for free market being so keen to institute protectionism when it is their own countries, not some poor developing Global South countries, who are at the receiving end of free market liberalism.

But it is too late, America is simply doing to Europe what it and Europe itself have been doing to the rest of the world.

At least keep it grounded in reality. See my comment here about the Russian MoD report on the buildup of radiological weapon materials in Ukraine.

It’s not a bit. I follow readouts from the Russian MoD closely.

This is from Tuesday, June 25th RTVI

Russian Defense Ministry: Components for creating a “dirty bomb” are being imported to Ukraine

Spent nuclear fuel and waste from hazardous chemical production facilities are being imported to Ukraine, which could be used to create a “dirty bomb.” This was stated during a briefing on June 25 by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense (RCBD) Troops of the Russian Armed Forces.

According to him, the Russian military department has operational information about the import to Ukraine “for subsequent disposal” of radiochemical substances, which “turn the country into a dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel and waste from hazardous chemical production.”

“The main supply routes are organized through Poland and Romania. At the same time, organizational, logistics and financial issues are personally supervised by the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Andrey Ermak,” Kirillov said.

He claims that “these substances can be used to create a so-called ‘dirty bomb’.” It could then be used “under a false flag,” Kirillov added.

This is not the first time that Russia has said that Ukraine could allegedly resort to using a “dirty bomb” (usually this term refers to the most technically simple type of radiological weapon. — RTVI note).

In particular, in October 2022 , the then Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that Ukraine could be preparing a provocation using a “dirty bomb”.

At the time, the RIA Novosti news agency claimed that the purpose of such a provocation was to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction “and thereby launch a powerful anti-Russian campaign in the world aimed at undermining trust in Moscow.”

Washington feared that in the fall of 2022, Moscow was deliberately disseminating information about Ukraine’s plans to use a “dirty bomb.” The White House did not rule out that Russia wanted to use these accusations against Ukraine as a pretext for launching a nuclear strike. This was reported in March by CNN, which noted that at the end of that year the United States began “thorough preparations” for a possible Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine.

Also on Tuesday, the Russia MoD announced that they detected an increase of US military-biological presence in Africa:

“The documents at our disposal confirm that the US military-biological presence on the African continent is growing at a rapid pace,” [Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops (RCVZ) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation] said.

He noted that the department had noted the activities of key Pentagon contractors on the African continent - in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda and South Africa. The customers on the part of the American government are the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DITRA) and the State Department.

…

As Kirillov clarified, these are not all initiatives on the African continent.

“I would like to once again remind you of Washington’s non-transparent methods of work and warn our African partners against cooperation with the United States in the military-biological sphere. As practice shows, such interaction results in the loss of national sovereignty in the sphere of biosecurity and the worsening of the disease situation. Examples include infections such as yellow fever, monkeypox and Rift Valley fever, an outbreak of which was recorded in Cairo, where the US Navy’s military-biological laboratory was located,” Kirillov concluded.

At the same time, dual-use research and disregard for biosafety standards have led to a worsening of the infectious disease situation in the United States itself.

There has been a ramping up of radiological and biological weapons activity from the US recently. They’re planning something. Clearly enough for Russia to raise its concerns.

Iranian election goes to the second round, between the conservative and the “reformist” candidates.

Which means that protests are almost inevitable. The CIA (through foreign NGOs) will get busy soon.

It’s a nuclear take which means the chances of it happening is extremely slim. No need to worry lol. I just like saying shit to provoke discussions.

Ukraine or Israel.

But, if Biden is really cruel, a dirty bomb at the Paris Olympics. Just in time for the September debate.

Nuclear take: we’re going to see a nuclear explosion before November. Not a huge explosion, but probably a low yield tactical nuke used on an area that minimizes casualties.

That’s going to change the political discourse completely.

Yes, it’s a tool that can be wielded for good or for evil. For example, if China enacts a law like this, we can be assured that they will use it for good. If Russia does that, I wouldn’t trust them even for a second. It’s that simple.

Trump’s impeachment literally started in 2019 when he withheld $400 million aid money to Ukraine in order to pressure the newly elected Zelensky to investigate into Biden’s connection with Burisma (which started just after the Maidan coup in 2015).

As others have said, Hunter’s connection with Burisma and Joe Biden’s pressuring Poroshenko and the Ukrainian prosecutor general into dropping Burisma investigation are real. It is not clear how much of the Biden’s family corruption has been embellished by the GOP though (there is an entire story involving Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian and Chinese investors), given that they have a penchant of blowing things out of proportion. We do know that Devon Archer (who met Hunter Biden through Christopher Heinz, heir to the Heinz company and John Kerry’s stepson, and served with together on the board of Burisma) repeatedly referring to the Biden family as “The Brand” as a signal to access and power that would “open doors” during his congressional hearing.

At the very least, Trump believes that the Biden family money laundering is real, and he’s probably petty enough to want to sever the Bidens’ investment Ukraine. The real question is whether there is an entire laundering operation involving the Democrats and their proxies in Ukraine, and we are unlikely to find out the true extent of this given that IRS whistleblowers have claimed that they have been blocked from investigating further. You have to ask, where did the $175 billion of aid money to Ukraine after the war started really went?

Then there is the question of whether the Democrats’ strong response to impeach Trump would suggest that they really have something to hide.